Artilium

Friday, May 15, 2009

Would you like ads with that?

The probable answer to that question is “no”, but let’s consider mobile advertising from another perspective. We all consume media content and we are all exposed to advertising as a result, be it radio, TV, cinema, newspapers, magazines or the Internet. We accept this position because the advertising subsidises the cost of the content or even makes it free. The adverts themselves can also be relevant, entertaining and even useful.

In mobile advertising the way the advert is delivered is important. In most types of media the advertising is adjacent to the content and if you are not consuming the desired media content then you are unlikely to be exposed to an advertisement. However, a mobile SMS or MMS based advert might actually interrupt you. When an incoming SMS tone sounds you might expect it to be a message from your best friend, but instead it is an advert for a product you are not interested in – very annoying.

Most current mobile ad solutions use similar targeting techniques to the Internet and often deliver ads via mobile web pages as well as SMS and MMS. These methods rely on the campaign manager setting relevant keywords and the ad is simply delivered against content matching these keywords. While ad impressions and CPM are relevant to the Internet, mobile advertising is not just the Internet on a smaller screen. It is much more and there are ways to capitalise on this!

An alternative model is being used by the MVNO Blyk in the UK and by Mobile Vikings in Belgium. These networks provide free calls, SMS or data based on you receiving advertising on your phone. The SIM cards are distributed by invitation only – you must be invited by an existing customer on the network and you must fit their preferred demographics. In signing up to such a service you would also provide a profile of yourself – interests, what you spend money on etc. You can also suggest when you are willing to receive the mobile ads. Clearly this is a smarter model than the Internet derived “pay and spray” model but I think we still have a way to go before finding the real mobile advertising revenue model that will bring us the promised $12.8 billion by 2011 (i).

So what might get us there? I believe that behavioural profiling is an essential technology for the delivery of mobile advertising. Interestingly Google is now using interest-based ads (ii) on the Internet – their Adwords technology is almost 10 years old and they are now starting to use behavioural targeting. Of course, there is more to advertising than just targeting, getting the delivery right is of prime importance too. The campaign must also be engaging, even useful, for the subscriber. One way to engage is through relevance and interaction. This may include the ability to actually buy a product or service via the mobile device. MNOs have a great advantage in having subscriber accounts and comms channels already established with the customer, although they seem slow to capitalise on this.

Artilium has developed unique ways to provide intelligence about a subscriber’s profile (including activities, interests, places regularly visited and socio-economic data) and about a subscriber’s current context (including location, current activity, calendar status, what and who are nearby). This intelligence goes way beyond keyword matching but is essential in the quest for optimal targeting, engagement and delivery.  Obviously the data is only used with the subscribers consent, and even then only for the purposes of delivering services that the subscriber has requested.

In the mobile world getting the right information to the right people in the right place at the right time applies to all content including advertising.

(i) http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=634928
(ii) http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/making-ads-more-interesting.html